Southern Secrets (Southern #7) - Natasha Madison Page 0,74

need to be alone right now," I say when he pulls up to my house. "My head is just …"

"Will you call me if you need me?" he asks when my hand comes out and grabs the handle of the door. "If not me, then at least someone." I look down, blinking away the tears. "You shouldn’t be here alone," he says.

I look back at the house. "Actually …" I swallow down my pride. "Do you think I could stay with you tonight?" I ask him, my bottom lip trembling. "It’s totally okay if you have plans."

"Go get your bag," Quinn tells me. "I’ll wait for you here." I nod and open the door. "Um," he says, and I look back at him. “You know he’s going to show up here.” I close my eyes, knowing he is right. “I would hear him out, regardless of what he did.”

I hold up my hand, not ready to hear anything that anyone has to say about him. In the end, he lied to me, just like Tex did; the only difference is people actually know about it. The only difference is people will look at me and know the mistakes I’ve made. "I don’t want to."

"Go get your things," he says, and I nod at him, getting out of the truck and allowing the tears to come. Better now, when I’m alone, than in front of everyone. I unlock and open the door, the cold air hitting me, and I can smell him in the air. I close the door behind me softly and head to my bedroom.

I stop at the doorway and look at the room, the bed still a mess from this afternoon. I walk in and smell him all around me. The woodsy smell that only he gives out, the smell that made me feel so fucking safe.

I bend to pick up his T-shirt on the floor beside the bed and bring it to my nose. The sob comes through me when I sit on the bed. I’m shocked and stunned. Never would I have imagined this. Never would I have thought that he would be the one to do this to me. To lie to me.

I look over at the side table, seeing his stuff on there, and my hand goes to my stomach. I look over at the corner of the room where his stuff is on the chair. He’s everywhere I look, and I know that I have to get out of here.

I walk to the closet and grab a bag when I hear the front door open and slam shut. My hands shake when I hear the footsteps come closer and closer, the bag dropping on the floor.

I turn to walk out of the closet when I see him standing there at the entrance to the bedroom. I look at him, and my heart shatters in my chest. I was right about one thing. I will not get over him. "Baby," he says, his voice in a whisper, and I shake my head. I hold up my hand, no words coming up over the lump in my throat.

"Don’t," I finally muster out. "I don’t."

"Listen to me, please," he says, taking a step into the room. My body aches for his touch, wanting him to put his palm on my cheek and his thumb to wipe away the tears that don’t stop pouring out.

"There is nothing to say," I say, anger starting to take over. "You’re a liar." Three words I never thought I would say to him.

"I never lied to you," he says, his voice tight. "Never."

"Omitting that you were half brothers with Ethan," I say as I step out of my closet, "is the same as fucking lying." I lash out at him.

"What I told you about myself was the truth," he says. "Everything I told you was my truth."

"You used my family and me," I say, and it’s his turn to take a step back as if I slapped him across the face. "You came here knowing who you were and who we were." I shrug my shoulders. "I was just a stupid girl who fell in love with you." I shake my head. "Or was that a lie, too? You know, get more into the family before you told us who you really were."

"Nothing," he hisses. "Nothing between us was a lie. I love you, Amelia. I love you with every fucking bone in my body. I love you with every fiber